Dancing Shaman

“Mattiusi Iyaituk began sculpting at age fourteen, following in the footsteps of his father, Markusi, and his brother Nutaraaluk, who were both sculptors. Until the late 1970s, he created figurative pieces, but he changed direction after encountering the work of Inuit artist Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok and British sculptor Henry Moore. In 1984 a Canada Council grant allowed Iyaituk, then a policeman, to give up police work and devote himself to a fulltime career as an artist. In 1996 he became president of the Inuit Art Foundation and remained in that position for sixteen years. He is one of the few Inuit artists to have traveled extensively, teaching workshops, for example, in Siberia and China.